CARS FOR ROYAL TOUR

Press, Volume LXXXIX, Issue 27151, 22 September 1953, Page 10

CARS FOR ROYAL TOUR

CONTROL BY POST OFFICE (New Zealand Press Association) WELLINGTON. September 21. The Post Office will be responsible for the cars used by the Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh and their entourage during the Royal tour of New Zealand in December and January. The motor transport officer for the tour will be Mr W. G. Taylor, formerly principal of the Transport Division, G.P.0., and now Chief Postmaster Wellington. He will be assisted by Mr F. E. Houston, who is senior overseer of the Post Office garage. About 30 Post Office drivers will be employed to drive the cars of the Royal tour fleet. The fleet used for the Royal tour will be in two groups. Group one will consist of two sevenseater landaulette Daimlers, two sevenseater open Daimler tourers, which can be fitted with plastic hoods, two seven-seater Daimler limousines, all 37 horsepower, all weighing 2 tons 12cwt, with an over-all length of 18ft 6in. and two seven-seater Humbers. one a pullman and one a Jandaulette. The cars in this group were bought by the Government for the previous proposed Royal visit. The second group will consist of 24 cars lent to the Government free of charge for the tour. The cars in this group will be 12 27 horsepower Humber Snipes, six Austin Sheerlines, and six four-seater Daimler Conquests.

The Post Office will be responsible for the mechanical maintenance of these vehicles, and this work will be under the supervision of Mr M. G. A. Cooper, of the Wellington Post Office workshops staff.

GIFT TO PRINCE CHARLES BUILDING OF YACHT AT AUCKLAND (New Zealand Press Association) AUCKLAND, September 21. Mr D. Marks, a designer of small boats, is to build the Auckland Harbour Board’s P Class gift yacht for Prince Charles. Working partly in his spare time, he will have the sevenfooter ready by mid-December. Present plans are for the craft to be presorted to the Duke of Edinburgh for fififson when the Royal couple arrive in'Tthe Gothic on December 24. The Ponsonby Cruising Club, sponsor of the class, is supervising construction for the Harbour Boara. The yacht will be made of New Zealand woods, the hull in kauri, and will be clear varnished. Mr Marks is one of Auckland’s growing set of professional boat builders. He will sail his 18-footer Quartet this season in the J. J. Giltinan world trophy event at Auckland in January. In view of the Royal interest in the class, it is possible that Auckland’s P class yachtsmen will give a special performance as the Gothic is berthing. The suggestion is that a number of these boats sail past the Gothic in line and, at a given signal, tip out and right themselves. This manoeuvre is often a feature of P class races.

STAMPS TO MARK TOUR VIEWS OF PHILATELIC SOCIETIES (New Zealand Press Association* WELLINGTON, September 21. Philatelists felt that they were one of the most interested parties in disputes on the merits of stamp designs, said a spokesman of the Federation of New Zealand Philatelic Societies today, referring to the Royal visit stamp issues. The federation, he said, represented some 3500 members of stamp clubs and watched the interests of a further 30,000 collectors in the Dominion. • “It deplores the hasty judgment based on the appearance of half-tone reproductions of the stamps on newsprint,” he added. The subject matter of a Royal visit issue must obviously be confined, said the spokesman, and colour had an important bearing on visual impressions. It was not possible to tell how a cake tasted by looking at the mix, so surely it was reasonable to withhold judgment until the actual stamp was available.